BNO Was Always a Con: CY Leung and Regina Ip Saw It Through Years Ago

Lunar New Year is approaching, so the fortune-tellers are back on the grind, predicting what nobody can really know. Most people hear it, laugh it off, and move on. But when politicians make predictions, people take them more seriously.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the UK’s BNO “lifeboat” scheme. It has pulled nearly 170,000 Hong Kong people to Britain—and now the UK has abruptly moved the goalposts, leaving plenty of people feeling cheated.

So I went back through the old political talk. And CY Leung had been saying it for ages: Britain is trying to take Hong Kong people for a ride. In his view, BNO is a “freakish passport,” built with “sneaky” terms—and the UK can change it whenever it wants.

Regina Ip was making the same call five years ago. She said the UK’s BNO plan is a “hypocritical trick”: it sounds generous, but the benefits don’t actually land, and it won’t truly help people from Hong Kong.

Fast-forward to today, and both predictions look dead right. The real sting is that many Hong Kong people were too trusting back then, brushed off blunt advice—and now they’re left stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Leung called it early: the UK can rewrite BNO rules anytime. Now it does—and BNO holders in Britain feel the shock.

Britain Moves the Goalposts

The Conservative Party first floated changes to BNO permanent residency rules in February last year.

CY Leung responds in a social media post by warning that the UK’s BNO policy is built on political expediency, so London can tighten or rewrite it at any time—and, crucially, may not even need to change legislation to dial back basics such as settlement rights, compulsory schooling access and medical benefits for Hong Kong people.

Now, that warning starts to look prescient: in November, the Home Office proposes tougher permanent residency requirements, and estimates suggest about 40% of BNO applicants could fail to clear the bar if the plan goes through.

Leung Saw Through the Con Early

When the BNO visa scheme first opened for applications, Leung raised several pointed questions: Is Britain's "5+1" naturalization policy genuine or just lip service to Hong Kong people? If the UK is so sincere, why did it invent this freakish BNO passport in the first place? Why not grant Hong Kong people full British citizenship? Why be so sneaky with all these parenthetical clauses?

According to Leung's prediction, the BNO scheme was merely the British government's stopgap measure—they never actually wanted Hong Kong people to smoothly obtain British citizenship. So they deployed "sneaky" tactics, creating this "5+1" arrangement (requiring five years of residence before applying for permanent residency, then another year before applying for citizenship). During this period, Britain can arbitrarily shift the goalposts to block naturalization. No wonder some Hong Kong emigrants to Britain feel the entire thing is a "scam."

Ip's Warning About Hypocrisy

Executive Council Convenor Regina Ip, during her time as a government official, handled nationality issues for Hong Kong people and thus understands precisely how the British government calculates behind the scenes.

In July 2020, when Britain announced the BNO visa scheme allowing BNO passport holders to reside there, Ip immediately pointed out that while the British government had opened the door, it set up the "5+1" arrangement as a "hypocritical ploy"—empty promises.

Hong Kong people residing in the UK during this period receive no welfare or subsidies and must ensure they have sufficient financial means to sustain themselves. In colloquial terms, they must "fend for themselves", making it a highly profitable deal for the British government.

Ip saw through it from day one: the BNO visa is a “hypocritical trick,” not a plan that truly helps people from Hong Kong.

She noted that after Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, Britain passed the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, directly issuing British passports to citizens of 12 territories and colonies—a stark contrast to today's rhetoric about relaxing BNO restrictions. This demonstrates that whether then or now, the British government has been thoroughly hypocritical toward Hong Kong people.

Two Key Lessons

From Leung and Ip's earlier predictions, we can draw two conclusions.

First, the British government has always been deeply wary of large numbers of Hong Kong people flooding into the UK. As early as 1977, it initiated legislative procedures to revoke the right of more than 2 million British National (Overseas) Hong Kong people to reside in Britain. The 2021 launch of the BNO visa was merely a stopgap measure—in reality, they don't want large numbers of Hong Kong people naturalizing simultaneously. Today's goalpost-moving to block Hong Kong people from permanent residency shows their fundamental mindset has never changed.

Second, there's a profit calculation behind the British government opening its doors to temporarily allow BNO Hong Kong people to reside there. This business must be risk-free and profitable—if some Hong Kong people don't "contribute," they're no longer welcome.

The "Mass Evacuation" That Never Was

A simple test of Britain’s sincerity sits in what it didn’t do, not what it later announced.

Former UK consul-general Andrew Heyn says that, in an interview last year with a pro-democracy outlet, he was told that at the height of the 2019 anti-extradition bill unrest, people inside the British government even floated the idea of a “mass evacuation” to move large numbers of Hong Kong people out.

But that idea dies fast. It is rejected on the spot as simply impossible to carry out—and the UK ends up rolling out the BNO visa scheme instead, a response that looks more like a policy workaround than a full-on evacuation plan.

As Leung said, this was merely a stopgap measure, leaving room for "modifications" and subject to tightening at any time. This prediction has finally come true today. Hong Kong BNO holders in Britain can only pray their luck holds out.

What Say You?

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The US–Iran war keeps everyone guessing. American forces made a show of force by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, with combat seemingly on the verge of breaking out — yet Trump suddenly shifted to a softer tone, suggesting both sides could return to the negotiating table within days and that extending the two-week ceasefire wasn't necessary. A deal may be within reach. But given his habit of reversing course, everyone would do well to wait and see before celebrating. While the Iranian situation churns with uncertainty, Ukraine's plight has quietly been forgotten — President Zelensky left to wither alone.

In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, Zelensky made no effort to hide his distress. Since America launched its campaign against Iran, he said, Washington has completely lost interest in Ukraine. Not only have negotiations ground to a halt, but arms and military equipment deliveries have abruptly stopped — precisely as Russian forces are pressing their offensive hard, leaving Ukraine in a dangerously exposed position.

Iran stole America's attention — and Ukraine paid the price. Talks frozen, arms cut off, Zelensky vents to German TV.

For the first time, Zelensky has come to understand that America, for all its self-image as a superpower, simply cannot stretch across multiple fronts without showing its limits. When the "big boss" proves unreliable, the "junior partner" is left to fend for itself.

Washington's Attention Has Shifted

Zelensky has had his fill of being sidelined, and the bitterness has finally spilled over. He told ZDF that after the Iran war began, America's focus visibly shifted. Special Envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner — the two men who had been mediating between Washington and Moscow — are now "constantly in talks with Iran," leaving no bandwidth for Ukraine. As a result, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been frozen since late February, with no timeline in sight for their resumption.

What makes matters worse is that Trump, already overwhelmed by the Iran campaign, has quietly shelved the Russia-Ukraine file and stopped pressing Putin. Zelensky warned that without pressure, Russia has nothing to fear and will act with impunity. Putin has clearly read the situation. After a 32-hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire, Russian forces resumed their offensive immediately, seizing the opportunity to push for an advantage.

The Air Defence Crisis

The bigger crisis isn't the stalled talks — it's the weapons shortage. Zelensky pointed out that US military aid deliveries have slowed to a crawl, with air defence systems the most acute problem. Supplies of PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptor missiles have shown serious gaps, and Ukraine could soon be left effectively "undefended," forced to watch helplessly as Russian missiles and drones fly in unchallenged.

Ukraine's air defences are running on empty. Interceptor missiles are critically short, and Russian strikes keep coming.

The reason Washington cannot deliver comes down to the Iran campaign itself. Since the war began, Iran has fired multiple missiles and drones at US military bases in Gulf states and at Israel. American forces have burned through enormous quantities of interceptor missiles countering these attacks, stockpiles are nearly depleted, and replenishment has no quick fix. The only option has been to rob Peter to pay Paul — redirecting air defence equipment destined for other countries to the Middle East, with Ukraine inevitably caught in the fallout.

Watching this crisis unfold, Zelensky is in a panic. Unless a US–Iran ceasefire materialises, there is little hope of American arms deliveries resuming. Ukraine has been forced to rely on itself, rushing to produce its own "FP-5 Flamingo" air defence missiles as a stopgap — though even that amounts to a distant rainstorm that cannot quench today's fire.

Adding insult to injury, Trump — in a bid to boost global oil supply and hold down rising prices — granted a 30-day sanctions waiver on Russia, allowing countries worldwide to purchase Russian oil and natural gas. The result: Russia pocketed an effortless €6 billion, turning the war into a windfall that helps fund its military campaign against Ukraine.

America Stepping Back From Europe

The "big boss" cooling on Zelensky is not entirely a matter of bandwidth. It also reflects a deliberate intent to distance America from Europe and leave the continent to clean up the Ukrainian mess on its own.

A recent development makes this attitude plain. According to Politico, War Secretary Hegseth will skip Wednesday's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — a forum that brings together defence ministers from over 50 pro-Ukraine nations — sending Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby in his place. Hegseth's snub signals clearly that the Trump administration no longer treats Ukraine as a priority.

Zelensky's predicament is a tragedy largely of his own making. He placed too much faith in the American "big boss," believing that with Washington firmly in his corner, he could go all-in against Russia. Today, he has finally learned the hard way: this "big boss" cannot manage multiple wars at once. Bogged down in Iran, America has no capacity left to care whether its "junior partner" sinks or swims.

Lai Ting-yiu